Slashdot Mirror
India Woos Medical Tourists
aspelling writes "It's not only quality hardware and software that can be done in India for a fraction of the cost. BBC reports that India has a generation of world class doctors capable of doing joint replacement, heart, neuro and cancer surgery at their state-of-the-art facilities. Don't be surprised when your physician prescribes you a trip to Bombay. Indian officials are working hard with HMOs around the world to make this dream come true."
I hate to admit it, but they do have a point. Savings can be had by lower paying doctors, nurses, facility costs, you also get to eliminate malpractice suits. Real savings with the last one. Your real cost will be to ship the patient back and forth (around $800 to $1200).
Hmm, Im torn between feeling bad for doctors/nurses, and happy that there will be less need for lawyers.
later,
epic
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
This is in stark contrast to the jerk who 'helped' me in SF. "Yeah, drink a lot of water. That'll be $400"
So you go to Bombay to get a kidney
removed and they remove the healthy one.
Can you sue them for malpractice a-la US?
I'm afraid not.
I read that some HMO's are sending xrays
and cat-scans to india for diagnosis via
internet.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
all parents tell they children that when they'll grow up they'll be doctors. Of course they say that thinking about how a doctor can make and not on how important and honorable (at least it was) to be a doctor.
... give me a break ... Some people study during all their lifes and don't make the money some surgeons make in a couple of days.
Several Med. freshman are not worried about saving lives and helping people, just to get out of the hospital with a Mercedez in the way to their house in the beach. Sometime they say that it is expensive because they had to study for 10 years to be a doctor
Some concepts must be reviwed.
I personally welcome this. Maybe it's because of the bad taste left in my mouth by seeing the local orthodontist brag about how he only worked a couple hours a week, right before he jumped into his multi-million dollar Mitsubishi turbo-prop. My mom just paid several thousand dollars to have a root canal/tooth cap.
Perhaps it's not the best bet for open heart, but for some of the more insanely priced operations like that I think it make senses.
www.eissq.com/BandP.html Ball and Plate System. Amuse your friends. Crush your enemies.
This is more a problem of OUR system, than anything better about theirs. I've got a cheaper solution: Build a Cruise-Ship/Hospital and park it 4+ miles offshore, offer first class medical help without all the US bullshit... you could cruise up and down the shore and hit more locations.
meh
People are already being shipped abroad (not to india, but france the netherlands etc.) in Britain for treatment because the NHS cannot cope with the number of patients on the waiting lists. Also some are travelling to countries like Poland for cheap cosmetic surgery.
Operations can and do go wrong and its not much good if your surgion is half way around the world when you get rushed into hospital. Also hospitals do plan for readmittance, which obviously they cannot do unless you are treated by them.
Also I'm sure I don't need to spell out the problems that will be encountered if the patient needs ongoing treatment.
In the UK when private operations go wrong the patient often gets dumped on the National Health Service.
P.S. If you want my opinion, the US could do a lot worse than get itself a National Health Service. Access to healthcare should not be based on the ability to pay or what is covered on your insurance policy (if you can afford one.)
Philip
Signatures are broken
My mom goes down to Nicaragua pretty regularly with a civic group...the last trip she had a filling replaced by a dentist down there. She said it was the most pleasant dental visit of her life, and it cost $25...so it's not just India where things are going to be exported to.
They determine where you can/cannot go for your healthcare needs, much like any HMO in the US.
that is so wrong.
I have a broken leg, I walk into any hospital and they fix it.
I need treatment for cancer, they send me to one of the hospitals which specialize in oncology, oh and I have a say in which one (an aunt just went through this, she was involved in the decision and what doctors she saw.)
The "waiting lists" that the US Republicans like to spout aren't nearly as draconian as they would have you believe. If you're dying, you get in. If it's an operation on a hangnail, then you're in another line.
Canada's life expectancy is higher than that of the US which lacks universal health care.
You're just spewing Republican health care rhetoric.
But the liberals will never allow caps on malpractice suits. Republicans, insurance and doctors groups wanted to impose a cap but the Democrats and trial lawyers groups opposed them. I believe they had a show down in Florida last year.
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In my experience of working in three different countries, there are three kinds of people:
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1. People who work very hard and are heads and shoulders above others in productivity. There are very few such people.
2. People who work hard and are productive.
3. People who are seat-warmers. According to something I read yesterday, perhaps at slashdot, 71% of American workforce is like that, but I don't believe it.
The above three kinds of people exist everywhere, irrespective of the country.
That India didn't build up an infrastructure has nothing to do with lack of work or otherwise of Indians. It has something to do with bottled-up economy, the license-permit regime and several other factors. Now that this regime is in the process of being dismantled, infrastructure is being built rapidly.
* See, for example, http://surajsphotos.fotopic.net/ for images of new roads and buildings being built in India.
* Go to www.nhai.org, the website of National Highways authority of India to look at other projects.
* Go to http://www.delhimetrorail.com/home/index.htm, to see how the Delhi Metro Rail project has made strides in the past years.
* Here is some more about building of infrastructure in India:
- AMP to raise $129m for India fund venture
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/0
- http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/02/13/st
New Delhi , Feb. 12
THE country is poised for a grey revolution with the construction sector entering a boom phase to meet the demand for new highways, ports and real estate, according to the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley.
----
If you are interested, I can give you more news about the boom in infrastructure development in India.
If Indians weren't hard-working, why would this be occurring?
If you pedal a bicycle rickshaw throughout a hot, dusty day ferrying passengers for a few cents, aren't you working hard?
If you work in fields, sowing and harvesting while the temperatures rise to 50 degree celsius, isn't that hard work?
If you hawk your wares on a bicycle or a cart amidst dense traffic, immense noise for a life time, isn't that hard work?
If you sit by roadside breaking stones with primitive pickaxes day after day, isn't that hard work?
And this is not specific to India, most developing countries have such work, and most developed countries too have the equivalent. Most humans are hard working.
The US spends roughly 15% of GDP on healthcare, while the rest of the first world spends roughly 10%. Docs in the US get paid roughly twice what their counterparts are paid in the rest of the first world. The average doc in the US makes $150k+ per year - after malpractice premiums. In general, malpractice is not a big expense, except for OBs and neurosurgeons.
For this, we get medical outcomes that are not demonstrably better than those in other first world countries. In fact, our outcomes are probably worse: in terms of life expectancy, we're 48th in the world, roughly the same as Cuba. That's sad, considering that our per capita healthcare spending is greater than Cuba's entire per-capita GDP.